.9 – How could this man be so stupid? He didn’t even know how to seize an opportunity!

“May I inquire about Your Excellency’s name?” Bai Changyan had gathered his wits together, and his usual temperament naturally returned. His smile was gentle and warm, but if he was as simple and warm as he appeared on the surface, he would never have been able to occupy his current role as the Prince’s leading scholar.

His future had been planned out right from the start. He has known the Prince since childhood, and assisting the future Emperor was the ambition he had carried with him from a young age. To be a great Prime Minister like his father was his lifelong goal.

Unfortunately, this famous talent was now stepping into a deep pit. The pit didn’t contain much, but it was so beautiful that people could not help but immerse themselves in it, unwilling to leave.

The person currently digging the pit looked at Bai Changyan’s smile and lifted his own lips. “I’m just a small servant in the General’s Palace. Bai gongzi does not have to be so courteous; I can’t afford it."

Xue Ling used the same teapot from earlier to prepare a cup of tea for him before raising his hand and motioning for him to sit down. “I heard that His Highness the Prince sent someone to send things to Mao City nearby. If I have guessed correctly, Bai gongzi should have come regarding these matters?"

Sure enough, this side had also been concerned about their store. Bai Changyan had some guesses in his mind, but he pretended to be casual as he said, “It seems that this time, the Princess is determined to suppress His Highness the Prince?” The two of them were here representing their backers, and since the other party had spoken so clearly, how could Bai Changyan not understand what he was thinking?

Xue Ling had been smiling the whole time, and when he heard him say that, he simply blinked his eyes as his smile took on a slightly naughty edge. “What is Bai gongzi saying? The Royal Princess is His Highness’ youngest aunt, why would she go and make trouble for His Highness?"

“Oh?” Bai Changyan had also looked into this before he came. Regarding this matter, it seemed that what the Royal Princess was doing really had no relationship with them at all. It was only a sudden guess on his part, but there was no reason for her to suddenly attempt to press them down on one of their big projects.

The Royal Princess was younger than the Prince, and the Prince had not interacted much with this little aunt of his. Their relationship was only at the level where they would stop and say hello when they passed each other. “Although it does not seem to be able to unrelated, for the Royal Princess to do this is quite coincidental and one cannot help but be suspicious." Only Bai Changyan would be able to link these matters together; even Wenren Yingyue would only think that it was bad luck and not consider that someone might be targeting her.

After all, going against the Prince in order to target her did not seem worthwhile no matter how one thought about it.

Plus, she had a good impression of the Royal Princess, and really did not think that such a stunning and beautiful woman would purposely trick her.

In fact, this beauty did love to play tricks, and he had no intentions letting this slide as a coincidence. Xue Ling’s hand tapped on the table as he laughingly continued, "It truly was not a coincidence. Her Highness the Princess specifically went against your business. Only, it was not for the sake of going against His Highness the Prince, but for another purpose.”

Bai Changyan had not expected the other party to be so straightforward. He had only dropped some hints, but the other party went ahead and spoke about everything directly. “For another purpose?”

“Yes.” Xue Ling casually drank a sip of tea, and did not appear to be discussing important matters at all. “Her Royal Highness is targeting someone, but it is not His Highness the Prince. Rather, it is the Mingyue Princess."

Bai Changyan suddenly realized that because he was not in direct contact with this matter, he had not thought that in fact, other than His Highness the Prince, in the whole situation, the person who had suffered the most should be the Mingyue Princess. “I wonder what kind of contradiction exists between the Princess and the Royal Princess?"

Xue Ling rolled his eyes and slowly offered, “Attempting to seize another’s husband?”

He spoke with some caution, his eyes darting everywhere as he kept his voice low. “You know, the rumours circulated in the Capital about the General not staying in the Royal Princess’ room – they are actually true."

At the end of the day, Bai Changyan had grown up in the Capital and had come into contact with affairs of the back court before. His brain came up with a grand play, and he immediately understood what it meant. His face showed a trace of surprise as he asked, “The Zhan General?”

Xue Ling raised his finger and touched it to his lips, making a shushing noise before he continued, "This is a secret from the General’s Palace. I think that you’re good looking, so I secretly shared it with you."

Bai Changyan didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, and finally said with amusement, “You can tell me as long as I look good?"

“Of course! The Royal Princess also only told me because I was good looking." He returned to his own seat. “To tell you the truth, the Royal Princess opened this shop not for the purpose of increasing income for the General’s Manor. Rather, it was for no other purpose than making the Mingyue Princess suffer."

“As for me, I feel that I have a heavy burden on my shoulders~ I need to safeguard the feelings of the General’s Manor.~"

“The Mingyue Princess and the General really...? Hm?"

“I’m not clear on this, but after she thanked the General for his help back then, the General was arranged to be married, and I don’t know what happened afterwards. But I know that the General and the Royal Princess had a big argument in the new house on the night of the wedding, after which the General moved out and has not yet returned to live there." Bai Changyan was rather doubtful regarding whether these words were true or false, but as long as he went to the General’s Manor to enquire, he could more or less confirm the facts for himself.

Bai Changyan hid his gaze, and it was unknown what he was thinking. He did not go to court, so he was not too clear on how the Zhan General looked when he attended morning court. The possibility was high that a couple that had been arranged to marry by the Emperor would appear united outwardly while being divided at heart.

Xue Ling did not continue on. He looked around, coughed and said, “Cough, there’s not much else I can say. In any case, it’s enough for you to understand the Royal Princess’ intentions. She is not doing it for the sake of confronting His Highness. It’s just that she doesn’t want the Mingyue Princess to take advantage of His Highness’ influence in order to rise up."

Bai Changyan pulled himself out of his thoughts and smiled as he spoke. "What words are those? In fact, you could have told us these things earlier. She is just a small Princess, and His Royal Highness does not even find her worthy of his attention." Everyone knew that the title of Princess was already an empty title within the Capital. “This time, I did not come to fight, but rather because I was worried that the Royal Princess and His Highness the Crown Prince would find themselves on opposing sides and give birth to suspicions, which would have been unfortunate."

“Rest assured, the Royal Princess also knows that His Highness has suffered some losses this time, so she already instructed me that some things can be done differently from the norm. The rouge powder was made according to the Royal Princess’ idea right from the start. You also know that Her Highness has always been in the back palace all the year round, and only trusts the Imperial Doctor and others like him. She has been taking materials from the palace the whole time, and although she paid for it, in the end it’s still not convenient to go through one more procedure, let alone the materials from the palace are expensive.” He blinked and clearly outlined what he meant. “I think that you should have already established routes for the materials when you cooperated with the Mingyue Princess. If we wish to cooperate with you and ship these things to the whole country, it should be something that you would be willing to do."

Producing for the entire country was a big order. Bai Changyan was not the person who had been responsible for this matter right from the start, and normally he should go and bring the person in charge over, but when he was faced with the shining eyes of the person opposite him, he thought about it and pushed the words he had originally wanted to say back into his stomach. Instead, he continued, "How could we refuse such good business? It’s just that you brought this up rather abruptly, and I will need to go back and report it to His Highness for further discussion."

Xue Ling had already achieved what he wanted. He nodded and agreed, “No problem. You are welcome to come find me anytime if there is anything else.”

Bai Changyan turned the topic back to the original question. “That is fine. Only, it seems that gongzi still has not told Changyan your name?"

“Xue, I am called Xue.”

Bai Changyan repeated the name in a low voice. His lips parted to reveal his teeth, and it was like he wanted to place this word into his mouth and swallow it into his stomach.

“When are you here? To make it more convenient for me to come and find you."

“As long as you come, I will be here.” Xue Ling was confident on this point as he had the system to help him monitor their movements. When facing Bai Changyan, he had already made full use of all the charm abilities that he could currently use, so Bai Changyan should be very fond of him now. As long as he made good use of this, he was sure that the female protagonist would never be able to stir up any waves in the Capital.

Xue Ling had no time to attack these men’s hearts step by step. Although he had said it was fun to fight over men with the heroine, in reality his heart was too cold, and he had no way to split out even a small part of his feelings for any man other than the one he had been entangled with for several lifetimes. What he needed to do was just to get in touch with the men before the heroine did, and ruin their impression of her even before they met her.

After that, as long as the female protagonist no longer had a way to meet them, it would be totally impossible for her to get together with them.

Xue Ling was a possessive lover, and would not accept even a hint of infidelity, either physically or mentally. Although he had been angry with Zhan Shaoxi, he still respected his lover. Since he could not tolerate Zhan Shaoxi having another person in his heart, and even an ambiguous relationship was unacceptable, then he would also demand the same standard of himself.

That was why he could only try to increase goodwill as quickly as possible when he met with the male protagonists. This made it easier for him to completely destroy these people’s love for the heroine.

It was very easy for a fox to bewitch a person. What he did was to first strengthen the impression of himself in Bai Changyan’s heart, and then use both direct and indirect means to hint and explicitly mention that they had better not become entangled with Wenren Yingyue.

Man number two was a smart man. He would understand what choice to make.

As for his groundless words that had appeared to be true on the surface, what he had told him was just the plot from the original text. He had clearly labelled most of it as simply being guesses, and it would be up to man number two whether he chose to believe it or not. In any case, the reasons he gave were just that capricious.

After Bai Changyan left, Xue Ling tidied up and was ready to leave the shop. He did not go through the front door, but instead went to the back door that had been specially prepared for himself. However, to his surprise, he had just stepped out the back door when he smacked into the man’s chest.

Xue Ling stepped back and looked up to meet the man’s surprised and puzzled gaze.

Xue Ling: “...” ?? He had not asked the system to help him monitor the man out of trust... but this was just too coincidental. What was going on?!

Zhan Shaoxi took a step forward and pulled the person in front of him straight into his arms while he was still distracted with his head bowed. "Madame not in the Manor, but rather changed to a different identity and ran out here to do what?" The man hugged him, and lowered his head to look at him carefully.

The other side kept his head bowed and did not seem to want to look at him, so Zhan Shaoxi chose to speak first.

These days, his treatment in the hands of his Lady Wife had improved, and although he could not stay over, he could still enter the room on normal days. He had gotten worried when he returned home and heard that Xue Ling had shut herself in her room, so he had broken into the room to take a look, and discovered that the person in the room was not his wife.

At that moment, Zhan Shaoxi had been rather anxious, but he calmed down again when he thought that there was a great possibility that his wife had done it herself. First, he made sure that those who knew about it would keep their mouths shut, and then came directly to the store based on his own speculations.

He had felt that the reasons Xue Ling had given him all sounded like excuses even back then, but because he could not bear to refuse the other party, he had no choice but to agree. Now, it seemed that Xue Ling had done things this way because she really wanted to do some things that couldn’t be discovered by others.

Zhan Shaoxi was a little angry. The entire way over, his mind had been filled with thoughts of catching his Lady Wife and putting her in a small black room, but when Xue Ling smacked into his chest, his entire being was in a state of shock, and he immediately threw those ideas out the window.

“Er...” Xue Ling felt a little embarrassed. The corner of his lips twitched as he lifted his head to look at Zhan Shaoxi, but before he could speak, his eyes had been covered by Zhan Shaoxi’s big hand.

He was carried bodily into the shop. At the back, there was a room that had been specifically reserved for Xue Ling’s use when they renovated, and Zhan Shaoxi directly brought him inside. It wasn’t until the door was closed that he put down his hand and kissed Xue Ling on his forehead. “Lady Wife, have you ever been told...”

“What?”

“You look extremely attractive when you wear men’s clothing.” It seemed that even saying it out in such a straightforward way was not enough to express his feelings, so Zhan Shaoxi simply hugged the other party and pressed Xue Ling against his legs, rubbing a certain part of his body against him as he spoke, "So attractive that I had a reaction just from seeing Madame’s current appearance.”

Xue Ling’s expression turned ugly.

The system who had been spectating the whole time silently lit candles for the General.

He could have said anything, but he chose to play tricks with its host like this.

If the host had already abandoned his moral integrity and rolled between the sheets with him, nothing would have happened since it was nothing but its great evildoer host and the man hooking up for a round in bed. But right now, its host was still holding on to the idea of playing tricks on Zhan Shaoxi.

To act indecently at this point in time, wasn’t he just hand-delivering himself to its host?

How could this man be so stupid? He didn’t even know how to seize an opportunity!

editors: alamerysl & BlueBug